Excerpt #31: orthodoxy

The first thing I need to say is that I defend “orthodoxy” because I think the hard-won wisdom of the church is true. Too often it is forgotten that that, for example, that the canon of the Scripture is “orthodoxy.” If the church had not decided against Marcion – that is, if the church had followed Marcion in eliminating the Old Testament and the Gospels because they were too Jewish – then we would have appeared more coherent, but we would have lost the tension that is at the heart of the Christian faith: Christians worship the Lord of Israel. It is too often forgotten that “trinity” names a reading rule that demands that Christians read the Old Testament as “our” scripture. That means we can never avoid the challenge of Jewish readings to our readings. So “orthodoxy” is not the avoidance of argument. Orthodoxy is the naming of arguments across time that must take place is we are to be faithful to Jesus.

Stanley Hauerwas, in conversation with Romand Coles, in Christianity, Democracy and The Radical Ordinary